How to change booking colors

Since version 3.10 of PoolCar, system administrators can now set different colors for bookings on the availability calendar. Specifically, colors can be set for:

Bookings not yet checked out

Bookings checked OUT (the driver has taken the keys), aka "In Progress"

Bookings checked IN (the driver has returned the keys), aka "Completed"

If your organization is not using Check In/Out then all bookings will be the color of the first bullet point (above). In other words, all bookings irrespective of progress status will be the same color. So the message here is that the full benefit of colorization only applies if you are using check in/out.

How do the colors help me?

Let's say for example, there is a booking from 11am to 12 noon. The time is now 1.15pm, and the color of the booking denotes the booking "In Progress". The car was due back at 12 noon but the color immediately tells me it is not back yet. If I had a booking for 1.15 I would be nervous!

In the above example, the colors can help you plan your day. Say it is 1.15pm per the example, and you need a car right now. Choosing this car might not be such a good choice if you need to be where you're going on time.

Colors also help the vehicle pool administrators reschedule and juggle bookings for these type of scenarios where cars are not returned when they were supposed to. Colorization is a form of communication about the state of the booking, and communication is vital in running a smooth, efficient pool.

Another example, borrowing from the above, if it were 1.15pm and you needed a car now, the administrator could cancel the 11am booking if the color communicated that the booking was not in progress, i.e. the keys were never picked up.

How to set the colors

Only system admins can set the colors from the Sysadmin > Booking Colors page. There is a snazzy color-picker for each progress status, with fine-tuning to be able to change the overall background color, the booking header color and the booking text color. The sysadmin can also revert to default colors if required.

Using Check In/Out

As mentioned above, to truly get the benefits of this color-communication, your organization needs to be using Check In/Out. This can be:

A kiosk PC in "kiosk" mode, where the screen is permanently on the Check In/Out page; and/or

A person who physically hands out keys and receives keys, all the time using the Check In/Out page for each interaction; and/or

Smartphone check in/out (coming soon); and/or

Key lockers (more info soon).

Default Colours

If you want to revert to the original 'out-of-the-box' colours, here are the values that you copy/paste into the colour-selector widget: